As this Pope’s penchant for “making a mess” shows no sign of diminishing to the peril of countless souls, we agree with Chris Ferrara’s assessment over at The Remnant, and his call (like Bishop Gracida’s) for an imperfect synod to defend the Church from Francis: a kind of emergency family intervention to stop the violence of an abusive father.

But having noted earlier controversies, we maintain that the worst dimension of this pontificatus horribilishas been a certain revisionist approach to divine worship, now set to display itself in liturgical spades at the conclusion of the Youth Synod currently underway in Rome.

Many have decried Francis’ liturgical offenses over the years: offering Masses with giant puppets, balloons, and tango dancing in the sanctuary; omitting genuflections before the Blessed Sacrament; withholding the Papal Blessing at audiences, but publicly blessing psychotropic herbs for pagan rituals; displaying profane items like beach balls on high altars; employing sacred vessels, furnishings, and vestments of novel design or illicit material; and a lengthy record of communicatio in sacris that has united this Pope in worship with – even bestowed on him the formal “blessings” of – heretics, schismatics, Muslims, Jews, and witch doctors. Would that all of it were fake news.

Still, these past deviations pale in comparison to what’s coming.

After wielding what appears for all the world to be a Wiccan stang at the opening Mass of the Synod, the Pope has announced that he will celebrate a new form of Mass at its conclusion: a liturgy that priests, bishops, cardinals and theologians are denouncing as barely recognizable as a Catholic rite.

This is really bad.

Unprecedented, Catastrophic Rupture

Papal Stang?

Earlier this summer, one of Pope Francis’ advisors elicited justifiably strong reactions after affirming that this Pope “breaks Catholic traditions whenever he wants,” welcoming the same as a “new phase” of Church history in which the faithful are no longer to follow Christ per the dictates of Scripture and Tradition, but are rather to be “ruled by an individual” without any moorings at all.[1]

Albeit far from Catholic, one could hardly call this diagnosis inaccurate. A number of commentators (Catholic and otherwise) have already shown Francis’ ongoing overthrow of traditional doctrine and discipline to bear marked similarities to the autocratic machinations of organized crime lords and socialist dictators of the past; but none of his earlier departures from Sacred Tradition are as staggering as this coming celebration of a new form of Mass, representing a radical break with all prior liturgical forms in the Roman Rite.[2]

The Pope announced it as a “liturgical innovation,” a “change in a venerable tradition” that “affects our hereditary religious patrimony, which seemed to enjoy the privilege of being untouchable and settled” – calling this a “special and historical occasion” and insisting that “we should not let ourselves be surprised by the nature, or even the nuisance, [?!] of its exterior forms.”

Does this sound even remotely like a “hermeneutic of continuity” to anyone?

From the same announcement (our emphasis):

“We must prepare for this many-sided inconvenience. It is the kind of upset caused by every novelty that breaks in on our habits. We shall notice that pious persons are disturbed most, because they have their own respectable way of hearing Mass, and they will feel shaken out of their usual thoughts and obliged to follow those of others. Even priests may feel some annoyance in this respect. […] This novelty is no small thing.”[3]

Friends, this is a plain announcement from the See of Peter that the sacred rites, once entrusted by Jesus Christ to his Apostles for the offering of eternal mysteries, are no longer binding or relevant.

This is a declaration of liturgical revolution.

Considering those involved in the making, it could hardly be otherwise.

REVEALED: Designed By Heretics, Expressing Heresy

Earlier this summer, many scoffed when Cardinal Gerhard Müller (former Prefect for the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith) denounced a “blatant process of Protestantizing” he was observing in the Catholic hierarchy, with bishops who “justify their infidelity to the Catholic faith with allegedly pastoral concern[.]”[4]

Now scoffers can do little more than ignore this clear and public demonstration of the same: that a mysterious committee (apparently even Cardinals had no idea who comprised the group) of sundry “liturgical experts” has worked long in closed-door sessions, at the Pope’s behest, to draft a new rite of Mass with direct input from Protestant pastors in the process.[5]

It already verges on incredible that any Catholic hierarch would have the gall to fabricate a new rite of Mass to suit their contemporary taste (ignoring the anathemas pronounced by the Council of Trent on such ventures!), but to find that formal heretics were invited to contribute to this rupturing of the most venerable liturgical tradition in the world simply beggars belief. Men who routinely violate the divine rights of the Church, reject any number of her Sacraments, contemn Our Lord in the Holy Eucharist, and deny the various dogmas enshrined in the Catholic Mass are invited to help with the impious creation of a new one? Can any devout Catholic fail to be offended by such grievously irreverent treatment of the sacred?

We even find in a French interview with Mr. Jean Guitton, the Pope’s personal friend and confidant, an (accidental?) admission that changing the Catholic Mass to be as amenable as possible to non-Catholics was one of the Pope’s chief aims:

“The intention of [the] Pope… with regard to what is commonly called the Mass, was to reform the Catholic liturgy in such a way that it should almost coincide with the Protestant liturgy… to get as close as possible to the Protestant Lord’s Supper… [in] an ecumenical intention to remove, or at least to correct, or to relax, what was too Catholic, in the traditional sense, in the Mass and, I repeat, to get the Catholic Mass closer to the Calvinist Mass [sic].”[6]

So there’s that.

As if Guitton’s admission weren’t troubling enough, one now finds that the Italian Archbishop selected by the Pope to midwife this unholy aberration confirmed the same operating principle: “Help[ing] in any way the road to union of the separated brethren, by removing every stone that could even remotely constitute an obstacle or difficulty” in the liturgy.[7] This monsignore even describes the lamentable result as “a major conquest of the Catholic Church.”[8]

Beg your pardon??

Even the humblest layperson can detect how this Protestantization has been achieved, simply by reading the text of the new rite side-by-side with the old. One finds that the Catholic Mass has been stripped of prayers expressing Catholic doctrine, with roughly 80% of the original content being deleted entirely or significantly altered in this new, intentionally less Catholic rite[9] – and seeing as the Pope’s introductory Instruction itself expresses heretical Eucharistic doctrine[10], it’s debatable whether this form of worship can even be called “Catholic” in any meaningful sense.

Indeed, the Protestant theologian Max Thurian looks like one of the first to confirm such misgivings (as many feared after last year’s reports of an “ecumenical Mass” in the works): “It is now theologically possible for Protestants to use the same Mass as Catholics.“[11] At the same time, Catholic priests the world over are heard giving dramatic declamations like: “At this critical juncture, the traditional Roman rite, more than one thousand years old, has been destroyed,”[12] and in the words of one Jesuit (naturally) advisor to the committee of liturgical destroyers:

“Not only the words, the melodies, and some of the gestures are different. To tell the truth, it is a different liturgy of the Mass. This needs to be said without ambiguity: the Roman Rite as we knew it no longer exists. It has been destroyed.”[13]

Where are the Cardinals??

Are there any Catholics, any men left among them to rescue the sacred rites?

To be fair, some have raised an alarm on this liturgical overthrow – although limiting themselves to publishing said “concerns” in roundabout ways, and without taking any concrete steps to stop this shipwreck. One wonders how bad it will need to get before one of them decides to “resist Cephas to the face.” (cf. Gal 2:11)

Still, one can be encouraged by the efforts of two Cardinals in the sees of Berrhoea and Colonia in Cappadocia, who apparently got advance notice of this impending liturgical madness, sought to intervene privately with the Pope, and then published their theological critique of the bogus new rite (now available in English, see note #14 below).

Their conclusions are devastating.

To take one excerpt (our emphasis):

“[The new liturgy] represents, both as a whole and in its details, a striking departure from the Catholic theology of the Mass… The new form of Mass was substantially rejected by the Episcopal Synod, was never submitted to the collegial judgement of the Episcopal Conferences and was never asked for by the people. It has every possibility of satisfying the most modernist of Protestants… To abandon a liturgical tradition which for four centuries stood as a sign and pledge of unity in worship, and to replace it with another liturgy which, due to the countless liberties it implicitly authorizes, cannot but be a sign of division–a liturgy which teems with insinuations or manifest errors against the integrity of the Catholic Faith–is, we feel bound in conscience to proclaim, an incalculable error.”[14]

The Pope was clearly prepared for such rejection of this rite by faithful Catholics, as can be read in the very text of his announcement:

“[The new rite] has been thought out by authoritative experts of sacred Liturgy; it has been discussed and meditated upon for a long time. We shall do well to accept it with joyful interest and put it into practice punctually, unanimously and carefully. …So do not let us talk about ‘the new Mass.’ Let us rather speak of the ‘new epoch’ in the Church’s life.”[15]

Let’s try putting that in layman’s terms:

“This is happening. Sit down and shut up. Hail the Revolution.”

Awake Yet?

Now, if you aren’t already nodding your head with sad recognition and understanding, you may want to brace yourself: for although accurate, some of the news items above aren’t exactly recent.

The New Mass that Pope Francis will celebrate at the end of the Youth Synod this month was created fifty years ago. It was crafted and imposed on the Church by one of his predecessors – that hapless innovator he now claims to have “canonized,” Pope Paul VI: a man whose sanctity is far from certain, still farther from exemplary(and about as “miraculous” as an inaccurate medical diagnosis), and at whose feet must be laid (among other things) the single greatest catastrophe in Church history: the near-total replacement of the Roman Rite of Mass with a novel, modernist construct – an attempted abortion of liturgical tradition.

If you were born after 1965, Paul VI’s impious New Mass – the Novus Ordo Missae – is likely the only rite for the offering of the Holy Sacrifice that you have ever known. It’s just as likely you were never told its true history (although much of this is now public record one might explore here), so you can be forgiven for not walking out of it years ago.

The important thing is to walk out now.

Otherwise, why be alarmed by the deviations of the current pontificate, or any yet to come? Ecclesiastical innovators have already dared to touch our most precious heritage, seeking to supplant it with a fabrication that even then-Cardinal Ratzinger referred to as a “banal, on-the-spot product”.[16] One thinks of St. Vincent of Lerins’ observation of the mad abandonment of Tradition in his own day:

“Such is the insanity of some men, such the impiety of their blinded understanding, such, finally, their lust after error, that they will not be content with the rule of faith delivered once and for all from antiquity, but must daily seek after something new, and even newer still, and are always longing to add something to religion, or to change it, or to subtract from it!”[17]

Happily, no Roman Catholic in good standing needs special permission to return to our true and traditional rites, whether to offer them as a priest or to attend them as a member of the faithful. Still more joyous is the fact that these are increasingly available as the exodus from SquishyChurch continues apace. In fifty years, we have little doubt that the “Traditional Latin Mass” (TLM) will once again be our dominant (if not exclusive, please God) liturgical practice across the globe. Indeed, this trend is already observable.

Furthermore, the continued claim of various bishops, priests, and theologians is that the TLM alone comprises an act of worship pleasing to God in the Roman tradition, and we have yet to find a cohesive argument to the contrary. More on that here.

The question is: What’s keeping you from right worship?

Embrace Right Worship, Resist the Revolution

“True piety admits no other rule than that whatsoever things have been faithfully received from our fathers the same are to be faithfully consigned to our children; and that it is our duty, not to lead religion whither we would, but rather to follow religion whither it leads.”[18]

PRIESTS: If you still offer the Novus Ordo, it’s time to stop.

The wind is changing. Return your flocks to the objective liturgical tradition of the Church; render to God the worship owed to Him, and render to the faithful what is theirs by right: that timeless treasury of ars celebrandi and the countless graces of our priceless heritage in the traditional Mass. If you don’t know it, learn it. Start today. We know you may suffer for this, but the faithful remaining through the growing darkness are prepared to help you. And remember: you signed up for the Cross.

You’re a priest. Your principletask isto render worthy sacrifice unto God. Regarding the cura animarum, right worship still remains the most significant of your duties towards the faithful; before parish programs, enrollment goals, and all else. If God’s children go hungry, deprived of that supernatural nourishment granted by a Mass grown organically over centuries of faithful devotion, it will be because you chose to feed them with a modernist construct designed by the faithless. Are you prepared to render an account for such withholding from God and His people?

LAITY: If you still belong to a Novus Ordo parish, it’s time to leave.

Even apart from the growing likelihood of total infrastructural collapse, you also bear the first duty of rendering God that worship befitting His glory, that which He has crafted in the Church over centuries: the Traditional Latin Mass. Don’t wait for friends and family to understand, or for your pastor to come around – until diocesan priests are ready to refuse to offend God’s glory any longer (braving the “St. Luke’s treatment” if they must), relocation is your path. Let the dead bury their dead; as for you and your house, serve ye the Lord.

Find an FSSP or ICKSP or other TLM community, and get over there. Change jobs, pack up and move if you have to (like plenty of other families are doing, particularly those with kids to raise), and behold the days of the 4th century relived; wherein the lay faithful groaned to see the majority of their bishops embrace heresy and give their churches over to erroneous rites. What did the layfolk do in those days? They left, clinging to the few faithful priests they could find, recognizing that nothing was more important than worship in Spirit and Truth. St. Basil the Great said of them:

“Matters have come to this pass: the people have left their houses of prayer, and now assemble in the deserts – a pitiable sight; women and children, old men, and men otherwise infirm, wretchedly faring in the open air, amid the most profuse rains and snow-storms and winds and frosts of winter; and again in summer under a scorching sun. To all this they submit, because they will have no part in the wicked Arian leaven.” (Letter 242)

Now it’s our turn. What are we prepared to do?

Nothing supersedes man’s duty to render God that worship proper to His Majesty, and the Novus Ordo just ain’t it. Rooting ourselves in communities that exclusively offer the traditional rites is essential for achieving this end; and once we have done so, it will be necessary to dig in and hold on, with a weather eye to the horizon. Because in point of fact, nobody has ever been to the Novus Ordo – we’ve only ever seen iterations of it. This inherently malleable rite has no enduring essential form. It has no prior tradition to pass on. It has no yesterday in the devotion of centuries, but only a limitless variety of novel tomorrows.

Wicked tomorrows. Do you see it yet?

Having been orchestrated to reflect the personal taste of the celebrant and local surround like an endless mirror-hall, amid a resurgent paganism in wider society the Novus Ordo must allow for increasingly evil iterations. Worse is yet to come, and we think very soon. Run far. Run fast.

[2] Space does not permit a thorough demonstration of the radical rupture represented by this new liturgical rite. More studies on this point will soon be forthcoming around the world, but the two Cardinals’ intervention referenced in note #14 below makes for a good start.

[3] Emphasis added. See the full text of the Pope’s address here. Pope Paul VI, that is.

[5] After this little detail was mentioned in papers from the Vatican’s L’Osservatore Romano to the Detroit News, another Catholic paper unpacked it here.

[6] As reported in Apropos 12.19.1993 and Christian Order 10.1994.

[7] As declared by Msgr. Bugnini in L’Osservatore Romano 3.19.1965.

[8] Bugnini’s full trumpeting is rather frightening stuff, as reads here: “The liturgical reform is a major conquest of the Catholic Church, and it has ecumenical dimensions, since the other Churches and Christian denominations see in it not only something to be admired in itself, but equally as a sign of further progress to come.” (p. 126)

[9] See a simple chart comparing the two rites here. Find another liturgical scholar’s quantification of the liturgical change in terms of percentages in the work here.

[10] That the Pope’s General Instruction was almost immediately retracted and rewritten to try and cover the heretical Eucharistic doctrine it originally expressed (see especially nos. 7 and 48) has done nothing to change the fact that the new rite itself still expresses the same error. See the Cardinals’ critique in #14 below.

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32 comments

Although I did move once from a parish, diocese, and home town to escape a sodomite priest, moving again is not in my future. We have Novus Ordo parishes in a Novus Ordo diocese BUT we do have a TLM every Sunday. There is a FSSP parish in the diocese but almost 2 hours from me; not practical to go or even possible at present. I think of my relatives, especially those in small towns who have no choice of a TLM to assist at and must be satisfied with what the Lord has provided for them where they are at. Yes, the faithful deserve more. They have for years. They have deserved the whole Rite of all the SAcraments, they have deserved true teachings and holy priests but these things are rarely provided for them. May God have mercy and intervene soon.

Indeed, he will use the Novus Ordo. We’re pointing out that the Novus Ordo itself is still newsworthy, and allows in principle for unlimited novel adjustments in the future – something being strongly signaled in the Amazon Synod preparations, and which we intend to write more on in the near future. Stay tuned!

I’m afraid I strongly dislike this type of writing. The page was emailed to me by a Catholic Truth reader who said something to the effect that things can’t get much worse… and I’ve just replied to tell him that, true enough, when the novus ordo was introduced all those years back, that was about as bad, liturgically, as it could get. I added that he’d presumably not realised that this was one of those articles calculated to shock only to realise you’d been fooled. I had realised quickly, not least when I read the quote from Paul VI NOT attributed to him, about the “nuisance” of ditching the traditional Mass. I think that’s dishonest. Causing unnecessary angst in souls already deeply disturbed by what is going on in the Church.

Honestly, things are so bad now, nobody with even a smattering of awareness of how the Devil is attacking the Church today, nobody should be attending, let alone writing about, the new Mass. Just vote with your feet. And if you are two hours away from a TLM, stay at home, read your missal, pray your rosary, do some extra spiritual reading. Nobody is obliged to participate in any “liturgy” which is a spiritual danger.

So, I disagree – the new Mass is anything but newsworthy. It’s dead. Cardinal Ranjith foretold, some years ago, that in 30 years, it would be gone. Don’t try to resuscitate it. Let it rest in peace.

We couldn’t agree more with your encouragement to “vote with your feet” in leaving the Novus Ordo behind, and it’s precisely to this end that we’ve written the article.

You are certainly free to disagree that a rite not a half century old is still NEWS in the long memory of the Church (or not worth reporting on); but while some Catholics have the blessed awareness of this novelty and are “over it” as you suggest, they remain the exception to date.

This article is not chiefly for them, but rather for those who (as the first line suggests) are just beginning to “connect the dots” regarding the nature of the NO as a revolutionary abandonment of right worship and objective liturgical tradition.

Also, if you note any missing or incorrect attributions, or faulty references, we would welcome learning of such. All citations are accurate to our knowledge, albeit carefully positioned to make the aforementioned point. Blessings to you and your work!

I don’t think that is answering the question. ‘Bart’ asked if the Mass the Pope will celebrate at the end of the Synod will be different to any other Novus Ordo Mass – you appear to be saying that it will be a Novus Ordo Mass i.e. the current one. It is disingenuous to say that ANY time the Novus Ordo Mass is celebrated that it is a ‘new’ Mass because something that is over 50 years old is not ‘new’ – it’s 50 years old. Forget about comparisons with how long the Latin Mass has been celebrated. Have you deliberately mis-led people?

This piece was really confusing. You cannot really back up your case made here. The words of consecration are intact. The Mass is valid. It may well be that the LM will be the Mass of the future, after the storm and restoration, but you reach too far with your statements. Please go back, sit down before the Tabernacle and re-think the piece. You are dividing the Holy Church in ways that are not helpful.

This is a very thorough commentary, expressing many concerns of mine all in one place. I will share it. Does anyone else feel as if they are being ripped into two by the constant instence of non-truth as Truth? God help us

Agreed. Full of half truth and inaccuracies…I don’t care for the NO but it is valid and licit.
BTW Max Thurian became Catholic and a priest before his death and was not by the spouting ecumenical heresies…people can change

I’m sorry, but this blog entry is quite misleading as it implies that Bergoglio would be undertaking to celebrate something different altogether from the rite of Mass he always presides over. I was skeptical after realizing that all of the footnotes referenced criticism of VII, as opposed to what readers are led to believe is something even beyond the Novus Ordo Missae. This only detracts from what should be real and contemporary criticism of his words and actions that occur on an almost daily basis, and are part of what is diabolical within what some people have referred to as a Youth “Sin-Nod”.

Still, if one were to consider a given Pope’s continued celebration of an impious, heterodox liturgical rite as somehow less “real” or “contemporary” (significant?) than ANYthing else among that Pope’s sundry words and deeds, such a one might benefit from a read of Jackson’s “Nothing Superfluous”; Mosebach’s “Heresy of Formlessness”; SIre’s “Phoenix from the Ashes”; or even our article below; for nothing could be more important than right worship, and thus nothing more disastrous than its loss, its removal, its replacement with a deviant construct – be that construct fifty seconds or fifty years old.

You sound more like a Calvinist than a Catholic with your certainty of “righteousness”.

Although I would very much like to have access to TLM , I don’t.
I want to “strengthen what remains and is about to die” so I try, in an all to faltering manner, to work with what is granted me, both in and through The Love of Christ.

I agree entirely Steve. This hyperbolic and misleading article had me considering giving up on the Sacranents altogether as I was under the initial impression that there were to be further radical Protestant concessions (as if there haven’t been enough already).
This kind of article does a disservice to those who try to remain faithful under difficult circumstances and is or seems a ploy to bolster the SSPX as the @only true Church.
I have enough trouble with what actually cues imunder Francis’ watch without having to worry about figuring out who else is trying to run The Chyrch based on their own agenda.

Shame on you people. You unsettle good propke’s Faith more than the present scandals tend to do!

Bishop Gracida, IMO you should not post this kind of virulent attack on what might be a less than optimal rendition of what is The Mass that has sustained most of the few good Catholics that remain in the visible Church.

Many good priests do their best to celebrate the NO Mass in a reverent manner.
I have absolutely no doubt that transubtatantiation takes place Ex opere operatu under the new form as long as the specified rubrics are adhered to.

Further agitation by self appointed “authorities” holds no more weight with me than the nonsensecsoewed by someone like James Martin.

This is The Roman Catholic Church; it is not the US political system!

Christ held His harshest condemnations fir those who held themselves up as paragons of virtue while dismissing others as “having missed the Truth” in regard to prayer and worship.
I believe Vigano and compared to this mean spirited, misleading attack his criticism seems mild.

Very misleading article. I was scared, then had to reread (my first time here). If a validly ordained priest speaks the words of consecration established by the church, Jesus IS present. It is a valid consecration. Since the introduction of the Novo Ordo mass allowing mass to be said in the vernacular languages around the world, many protestants and others have entered His church who otherwise would not have. If you question the validity of those masses, after the Holy Father has explicitly guided you (Vatican II), are you any different than Martin Luther or any of the protestant reformers? Jesus does sacrifice His honor and glory to save his people and bring His presence to His people for the salvation of souls. Eucharistic miracles have occurred with both rites of His mass. Both rites are valid. Daniel 12:11 has not happened yet,

Stupid article.
Yeah, I am going to be clear, this was a stupid article that was not clear that it was satiire. I can kind of understand it being a little old blog post, but it got picked up and reprinted elsewhere. If it wasn’t pointed out that it was a joke, I had no clear way of knowing it, and in these times, any wacky news about Pope Francis is believable.

So, this is on you – you did not make it clear enough it was a dumb joke.

This is a stupid article.
Ok, it is a little old blog post, I get that.
But you failed bigtime because you weren’t clear with your transition to the clarifying moment.
Too much weird stuff about this Pope to notice that weak transition.
I had to reread the article 3-4 times before I detected what you intended to do with the transition.
It’s not just us in the comments section – other feeds picked up this blog and reprinted under the same misunderstanding you caused, here.
I suggest you put a disclaimer at the top that you were being creaitve in painting a non-existent scenario.

[…] several months – including today’s reprint of Whispers of Restoration’s post on the new rite of the Mass. The cascade of opposition in the comments spurred me to write this response in defense of WOR and […]

Not happy at all with what you wrote here. Messing with some of our heads. And look at our special bishop who thought, most likely, that this was legitimate. He is 95 years old and has visual problems and even one peter five put it out (here’s hoping they didn’t believe it). I am now trying to explain this to a someone who is upset about what will happen and she is 90 years old. Thanks for nothing. You didn’t help at all with what we need in the Church right now which is truth, and solidarity. God have mercy on your not wise writing about our sacred mass. This was not satire it was nasty journalism.

[…] the past several months – including today’s reprint of Whispers of Restoration’s post on the new rite of the Mass. The cascade of opposition in the comments spurred me to write this response in defense of WOR and […]